Awards & Honors

Donald Lloyd-Jones, MD, ScM,
Receives AHA Gold Award

Donald Lloyd-Jones, MD, ScM, professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and director of the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), is the recipient of the American Heart Association’s (AHA) 2026 Gold Heart Award.

Each year, the association bestows the Gold Heart Award, its highest honor, on volunteers whose meaningful and continued contributions have significantly advanced the objectives of the AHA.

The AHA, whose mission is “to build healthier lives, free of cardiovascular disease and stroke,” funds cardiovascular research and health policy advocacy. Each year, the association bestows the Gold Heart Award, its highest honor, on volunteers whose meaningful and continued contributions have significantly advanced the objectives of the AHA.

A former president of the AHA, Lloyd-Jones has been a national leader in public health and clinical approaches to promoting cardiovascular health and preventing cardiovascular diseases across the life course. He has been a frequent leader of joint AHA/American College of Cardiology clinical practice guidelines, serving as co-chair of the 2013 Risk Assessment Guidelines and a member of the 2013 Cholesterol, the 2018 Cholesterol, the 2019 Primary Prevention, the 2025 Hypertension and the 2026 Dyslipidemia Guidelines, among others. Lloyd-Jones has also led a number of national initiatives for AHA, defining and promoting a novel construct to improve the cardiovascular health of all Americans, and providing direct advocacy for improvements in cardiovascular prevention and care at the federal, state, and local levels across the country.

Lloyd-Jones’ research interests include the study of the mechanisms and life course of cardiovascular health and healthy aging, and cardiovascular disease epidemiology, risk estimation and prevention. Other areas of interest include the use of novel biomarkers and imaging of subclinical atherosclerosis to improve prevention, and the epidemiology and outcomes of hypertension and dyslipidemia. His clinical and teaching interests lie in general cardiology, with a focus on prevention.

Lloyd-Jones received his undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College, his medical degree from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a master’s in epidemiology from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and served as chief medical resident there. After a cardiology fellowship at MGH, he joined the staff as an attending cardiologist, and was an instructor and then assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and MGH. He joined the FHS as a research fellow in 1997 and was a research associate from 1999–2004. In 2004, he moved to Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine and became chair of the department of preventive medicine in 2009, as well as senior associate dean for clinical and translational research in 2012.  He returned to the lead the FHS and joined the faculty at BU in 2025.